[Planet: Earth - Continent: Asia - Country: China - City: Beijing - Katarina’s Mansion]

[Ashley’s POV]

“Is there anything that I should know?” Ashley probed with carelessness

Katarina thought for a while before bluntly stating, “Currently your body is being borrowed from an alternate timeline and once the connection between the two timelines weaken your body will revert to its original form”

“Which means I get cancer again…” A depressing look filled Ashley’s face like she just ate a raisin muffin thinking it was a chocolate muffin.

A silence filled the room before Ashley asked another question and Katarina responded curtly. As the sun descended from it’s high position like a king stepping down from a throne and the moon began to rise like a queen usurping the throne the moonlight shone upon the dinning table where two ladies sat asking questions to each other.

By the time night fell Ashley’s face was laced with seriousness and fatigue like someone who stayed up an entire night to study for exams. Opposite to her sat a lady who bore no fatigue at all and on her face with a playful smile on her face, like someone who just won a small cash prize in the lottery. Ashley took a deep breath before stating,

“I want in.” The black haired girl demanded with a bitter expression on her face

“Which reason persuaded you to opt with that decision?” Katarina jested with a hint of playfulness.

“Future you want me to go into the program, so it has got to be something important and somewhat safe.” She expressed bluntly

“Anything else?”

‘I want to make you proud. I want to know everything about my sister’

But she didn’t say this out loud out of embarrassment.

“Nothing important” she opted

A smile gently crawled onto Katarina’s face as she felt like a large burden was relieved from her back. Like a person who finally got out of prison a relieved expression flooded her face as she said,

“I’m glad you chose this option because I can stop hiding”

She slowly began to stand up and snapped her fingers a flash flood of darkness roared throughout the house as the lights were turned off and the curtains were shut leaving Katarina and Ashley alone within the darkness. Crack. The sound of skin crackling echoed in the dark mansion. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The sound of what seemed to be a metallic rod stabbing into the ground reverbed throughout the mansion as the small sound of a million toothpicks falling echoed the house creating a cocophy of little spider legs fluttering throughout the mansion.

Ashley looked up following the direction of the sound before a sudden. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK. Echoed once more in the mansion filling it with a fleeting atmosphere of a horror movie and Ashely was the only audience. The skittering steps stopped atop the ceiling and the faint sound of spinning silk entranced the amazed and frightened Ashely.

Katarina’s hand gently caressed Ashley’s cheek in the darkness and the little tippy tappy noises stopped. “Ash, Do you know what is an arachne?”

“!!!!!” Excitement filled Ashley’s face as she began to figure out what was Katarina’s true identity

“Are you an Arachne!!”

The curtains were pulled back slightly creating an illusion of a spotlight only focusing on Katarina’s face. Ashley stared into Katarina’s face which was like the visual representation of a piece of art, perfectly symmetrical with 8 small beautiful eyes staring right back into Ashley’s face. Ashley blinked in shock and awe like she just saw a piano fall down from the sky and someone began to play it. Noticing the change in expression Katarina’s face began to become flustered with embarrassment and promptly looked away in shame.

Noticing the change in her sister’s emotion Ashley spoke out her truest feelings, “Sis I think you look beautiful”

A pause and confusion struck Katarina’s face like a bolt of lightning.

“You’re not scared of me?” Katarina asked in confusion

Ashley pouted and took Katarina’s hand and placed them on her chest,

“These hands have brought me out of a dark era of my life. These hands rescued me from a past I never want to remember” then Ashley caressed her hand on Katarina’s cheeks

“These ears have heard everytime I shouted at you and you’ve never left me, this mouth comforted me whenever I cried on your shoulder and these eyes have watched me grow up from when I was a toddler. Most importantly these eyes have taught me to see the good in people, and you’ve taught me well. Katarina, how can I ever hate you. I love you for who you are, Arachne or not. You’ll always be Katarina to me”

Tears began to well up in Katarina’s eyes as she heard the words of Ashley. “I’m so glad you’re my sister” Katarina squeaked out, “I love you, I truly do” as she planted a kiss on Ashley’s forehead. “I’m a Xylian Arachne, a commander of spiders and nano-spiders.” The lights gradually turned on in suspense slowly revealing the sight of an entire dining room with spiders lying on every surface curiously observing Ashley. To Ashley it looked like the room was layered with black grains of rice on every surface, with 8 small legs accompanying each grain of rice.

Taking a deep breath of shock and awe Ashley looked towards Katarina once again in an entirely new light. Katarina feeling the proud look in Ashley’s eyes giggled before pointing up,

“They have something to say to you”

Ashley, still in excitement and awe immediately shot her head up seeing the message printed in the cobweb displaying at large,

“HELLO ASHLEY! ヾ(⌒∇⌒*)”

Ashley let out a fleeting giggle before she tried to grab her sister’s arm, yet failed to do. She looked up to realize that Katarina was much much taller than usual and noticed the spider body that she had on the bottom. Ashley didn’t notice the body because it was pure pitch black with silver lines drawn across the forming a linear pattern. It looked like the veins of the spider with how it started thin at the edge of her legs and proceeded to become thicker as it connected to the abdomen which was concentrated to the body portion of Katarina. They resembled large steel rods and had a metallic sheen to it making Ashley imagine an elephant’s tusk. They betrayed the expectations of large furry legs and instead were sleek hairless matte black legs.

The abdomen stayed true to spider expectations and looked exactly like a normal abdomen with silver lines patterning the fine exo-skeleton. It resembled a sculpture made out of black marble carved into the shape of Katarina’s abdomen.

“The spiders are cute” Ashley commented with a playful smile, “So do you control all of these spiders?”

“They’re all under my absolute control. They’ve been living under the cracks of our house managing the chores whenever we forget and cleaning the house whenever we’re out. Haven’t you always wondered how the house was always clean” Katarina teased with a giggle

“I thought you were a responsible sister!”

“I am!!! That’s why I tell them to do all the work! That’s called efficiency” Katarina pouted, “We can go through my spider collection at a later date but for today I’ll tell you my story since you wanted to know everything about your sister”

Excited Ashley patiently sat by the table as dinner was promptly delivered to their table. Wine was served and Ashley was surprised by the efficiency of the spiders.

“Well where do I start this story….probably with my home civilization Suitsu. So I want you to imagine a civilization where there were hyper-intelligent spiders that ruled the world instead of humans. They were the Suitsu civilizations and they were an ingenious civilization just like the humans. Our civilization prospered and grew, but a tragedy struck turning the world into chaos. A meteor struck our home planet and the world was turned into a post-apocalyptic mess. I was born in that post-apocalyptic world and the God of Tranquillity above gave me a chance to save the world from it’s horrible end which I did successfully. Now I’m retired and wanted to start a clothing business back on earth, then I met you. So that’s the short version of my life.”

“What about the long version?”

Katarina’s mouth twitched, “I’ve lived for over a thousand years collectively, I’ll take forever to tell you but don’t you dare call me grandma. My soul is still young” Katarina harrumphed in displeasure.

The spiders poured Katarina a glass of wine as silk gently dropped down from the ceiling like honey. “Close your eyes and rest, I’ll give you access to the interdimensional hub”. The honey like silk curved and wrapped Ashley up. The cold sensation of the pure silk made Ashley feel like she’s in an ice cube as she slowly began to lose consciousness. As the silk continued to wrap her up the last thing she saw was her sister once again but this time in another light.

She saw her exposed nature of horror and beauty like the siren’s song full of beauty yet hidden beneath is the scent of death. Like a beautiful rose, where one can only relish in it’s sight without touching it unless you wished to be pricked by it’s thorns. Beautiful, yet dangerous. Those were the words that Ashley would describe Katarina’s current demeanor, and behind all of that was the loving caring eyes of her sister. As the final string of silk wrapped around Ashley she was proud to have such a sister.